India’s first trading programme to combat particulate air pollution
June 10 , 2019 1914 days 759 0
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani launched India’s first trading programme to combat particulate air pollution on World Environment Day 2019.
The programme is a market-based system where the government sets a cap on emissions and allows industries to buy and sell permits to stay below the cap.
Under the cap and trade system, the regulator first defines the total mass of pollution that can be put into the air over a defined period by all factories put together.
Then, a set of permits is created, each of which allows a certain amount of pollution, and the total is equal to the cap.
These permits are the quantity that is bought and sold.
Each factory is allocated a share of these permits (this could be equal or based on size or some other rule).
After this, plants can trade permits with each other, just like any other commodity.